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Dear Friends,
What an incredible 70th Anniversary Season! Thank you for being with us as we celebrated this extraordinary milestone. We produced two world premiere productions, including the much-anticipated original musical Run Bambi Run, a modern adaptation of Louisa May Alcott’s classic Little Women, and we celebrated the 25th anniversary of Guys on Ice. You can read about all of our exciting accomplishments in our Annual Impact Report that will arrive later this summer.
We are already preparing another exciting season for you. Our production team is onsite working on the first shows in our 2024/25 Season, including the Midwest premiere of The Coast Starlight, the co-world premiere musical Prelude to a Kiss a musical, and a new music event Women of Rock created by Artistic Director Mark Clements. What makes our upcoming season even more exciting is that all of our Powerhouse Theater productions will take place in alternate venues while we reconstruct the Powerhouse Theater.
Over the spring, our staff has been busy preparing for construction. Our production team diligently cleaned out our prop storage area and our costume shop in preparation for our largest sale ever, which raised nearly $30,000! They also moved our entire scene and paint shops to our new Production Facility. This will make room for our new Education and Engagement Center, a dedicated space that will be used for our education programs, audience engagement events, and will be made available for use to our community partners for free.
The first phase of construction on our new Associated Bank Theater Complex begins with the Powerhouse Theater. Over the next year, we will install wider seats, state-of-the-
art production equipment, and provide first-floor access to wheelchair-accessible seating in the first row. We will also reconfigure the current Powerhouse Lobby to serve as a central entry point to our entire complex. This means that you will be able to access all three of our performance spaces – the Ellen & Joe Checota Powerhouse Theater, the Herro-Franke Studio Theater, and the Stackner Cabaret – from the new Haack Lobby.
Construction on the new Powerhouse and Haack Lobby began on May 13, just days after our Curtain Call Ball. This year’s gala, ‘Under The Same Stars – Building a Legacy for Milwaukee’ raised a record-breaking $1 million that will go toward building the new Associated Bank Theater Center. A special thank-you to our co-chairs Ellen and Joe Checota, Diep and Jason Graham, Diane and Andy Harmening, and Anne and Chris Noyes for their leadership of such a successful event. Because of the event’s success, we are now at 98% of our fundraising goal!
For more information about our 2024/25 Season and to stay updated on all of the exciting construction updates, visit www.MilwaukeeRep.com.
Finally, we want to welcome the newest additions to our Board of Trustees: Bryan Carson, Peter Hammond, Debra Johnson, and Benjamin Wagner. We are thrilled to have them join our Board and look forward to working together.
When Mary John Sullivan founded our theater company in 1954, it was originally incorporated as “Drama, Inc.”. In the 1960s, we changed our name to Milwaukee Repertory Theater. Through this publication, we pay homage to our original name and hope to demonstrate how your support makes an extraordinary difference to the work we do. Why ‘Drama Ink’?
Mark Clements Artistic Director
Chad Bauman Executive Director
Cover: Alexis J. Roston and the cast of Nina Simone: Four Women. Photo credit: Michael Brosilow.
SCENES behind the
An Exclusive Look at Milwaukee Rep’s New Off-Site Production Facility
Earlier this year, we began preparing our scene and paint shops to move off-site to accommodate the future home of our Herzfeld Foundation Education and Engagement Center. Our new 28,000 square foot production facility is now located in Wauwatosa.
This facility will house our scene shop, paint shop, props storage, offices for our production staff, and storage for the set of A Christmas Carol. Because this storage will all be under one roof, we will have an easier time accessing the set of A Christmas Carol to perform maintenance in between holiday seasons at the Pabst theater. We will also have room on the paint deck to assemble sets before they are delivered to
the theater. This space will also simplify our ability to do coproductions with other theaters, as all of our sets will be made with transportation in mind. They will all be designed in such a way that they can be disassembled in one space and reassembled in another.
In addition to our existing equipment, we are adding a Computer Numerical Control (CNC) machine, in which preprogrammed computer software dictates the movements of factory tools and machinery. This will give us the capability to produce more intricate scenery and automate certain carpentry processes to allow us to be more efficient, which in turn means that our team can create more elaborate designs that enhance the artistic product you see on our stages.
To learn more about the Powering Milwaukee Campaign and learn how you can get involved in creating the new Associated Bank Theater Center, visit www.MilwaukeeRep.com/poweringmilwaukee.
EDUCATION & ENGAGEMENT: Putting our Community Center Stage
Though our stages may be quiet for the summer, our Education and Engagement team is hard at work creating programs that bring theater to students and community members across the Greater Milwaukee Area.
Metcalfe Park
For the past year, Milwaukee Rep has collaborated with Metcalfe Park Community Bridges, Artists Working in Education, and First Stage on a project to strengthen the identity of Milwaukee’s Metcalfe Park neighborhood. Residents shared that they wanted a way to tell the story of their neighborhood’s namesake, Ralph Metcalfe, to educate both fellow residents and the broader Milwaukee community about his legacy. This collaboration resulted in the creation of Ralph Metcalfe: World’s Fastest Human , an original play about Ralph Metcalfe, a black man who graduated from Marquette University in 1936, competed in the Olympics in 1932 and 1936 earning gold, silver, and bronze medals in track and field, and went on to become a US Congressman for the state of Illinois.
Adult Acting Classes
Milwaukee Rep provides opportunities for adults to explore their love of theater with our Adult Acting series!
After commissioning local playwright Sheri Williams-Pannell to write the play, we worked with our partners to provide workshops for residents. Not only is this project a chance to share Ralph Metcalfe’s incredible story, but it also serves as an opportunity for residents to learn real-world skills such as sewing, scenic and props construction, and public speaking. Milwaukee Rep staff also worked with residents to create a mural as the backdrop for the production. Rehearsals began for a final staged reading in early June and the performance took place in Metcalfe Park on June 26th.
Basic Acting 1: This six-session course is for adults of all levels to learn fundamental acting skills. Classes encourage participants to use their imagination, body and voice to explore specific acting techniques. Special attention is given to preparing and presenting a monologue.
Dates: 7/9 – 8/13 | 7/11 – 8/22 | 10/10 – 11/14
Basic Acting 2: This six-session course is for actors of all levels to continue exploring the essential skills learned in Basic Acting I. Students will create and develop unique characters through scenes and monologues.
Dates: 10/8-11/12
For more information and to register for Adult Acting classes, visit: www.MilwaukeeRep.com/engage-learn/training/acting-classes
Mural created by Metcalfe Park residents to be used as the backdrop for the reading.
Metcalfe Park residents prepare for final reading of Ralph Metcalfe: World’s Fastest Human
Adult Acting students work on preparing a monologue in April 2023.
EDUCATION & ENGAGEMENT: Putting our Community Center Stage
Summer Workshops
School may be out for the summer, but the learning never stops! Throughout the summer, our Education and Engagement team provides programming to students across Milwaukee, teaching literacy and social-emotional skills through ensemble-building games and other activities.
MPS Summer Academy: Milwaukee Rep is joining forces with Milwaukee Public Schools to bring theater to their Summer Academy 2024 at seven schools for students in 4th-8th grades.
Drama FUN-damentals: In partnership with Milwaukee Recreation, we will provide this mini workshop series on Saturdays through July 27. These workshops introduce students ages 7+ to the basics of theater and acting through games, activities and performance opportunities, while building on their skills of cooperation, concentration and creativity.
Coming This Fall!
Love Stories
Many of next season’s shows center on different kinds of love stories. We will celebrate love by asking our patrons, community, and staff to share their stories of love and present them in a series of brand-new original monologues and scenes before performances of Prelude to a Kiss a musical , Romeo and Juliet, and The Last Five Years. This is where you come in! If you and your partner are interested in participating, we invite you to contact Engagement Coordinator Suze Falk at sfalk@milwaukeerep.com to be interviewed by a member of our team. Perhaps your own love story will become an inspiring new piece of theater!
Reading Residencies
Every year our Reading Residencies serve more than 30 classrooms, working with 6th-10th grade students on literacy, social emotional skills, and theater participation by studying the scripts of our productions and participating in hands-on activities. This season, we’re excited to announce that Reading Residency students will be studying our productions of either Romeo and Juliet or Marie and Rosetta.
Summer Youth Ensemble: This paid training program encourages students to collaborate with professional artists on, behind and beyond Milwaukee Rep’s stages. This program centers youth perspective and voice, while preparing students for a career in theater.
Dinner Dialogues
Each season, Milwaukee Rep offers Dinner Dialogues where members of our community are invited to have facilitated and meaningful conversations surrounding the themes of productions being performed on our stages while enjoying delicious food and drink from restaurants all over the Milwaukee area. This fall, we’ll kick off our season with a Dinner Dialogue in conjunction with our production of The Coast Starlight
Topic: What is Empathy? Human Connection and Building Bridges
Date: September 30th at 5pm
Summer Youth Ensemble performs at the 2023 MKE Black Theatre Festival.
Actor Eli Mayer (right) attends Dinner Dialogue for The Chosen at Friendship Circle of Wisconsin.
Prelude to...
This September, Milwaukee Rep will produce the world premiere Prelude to a Kiss a musical at the Sharon Lynne Wilson Center for the Arts in Brookfield. We’ve been working on this show as a co-production with South Coast Repertory (SCR) in Costa Mesa, California where it played earlier this spring, and even before it makes the trip from California to Wisconsin this show will have already gone on an incredible journey.
Playwright Craig Lucas first wrote Prelude to a Kiss as a play that was commissioned by SCR in 1988. The play was then produced on Broadway where it earned both Tony Award and Pulitzer Prize nominations before it was developed into a film starring Alec Baldwin and Meg Ryan in 1992.
South Coast Repertory then commissioned a group of artists to turn the play into a musical. When approached to adapt the play, Lucas wasn’t initially convinced that he wanted to revisit the work. Despite its “seemingly whimsical fairy tale of a plot,” the play had been inspired by his experiences at the height of the AIDS crisis, when he watched loved ones become “physically unrecognizable,” as he told American Theatre magazine earlier this spring.
It wasn’t until he heard the first song written by lyricist Sean Hartley and composer-lyricist Daniel Messé that he decided to develop Prelude to a Kiss into a full musical. After having its initial workshop at the 2019 Pacific Playwrights Festival, Prelude to a Kiss a Musical took several more years to be developed at
September 10 – October 19, 2024 at The Harris Theater, Sharon Lynne Wilson Center for the Arts
SCR due to the pandemic, cancelled workshops due to COVID and other postponements.
One of the greatest challenges the creative team faced was to adapt the story from its original setting in the late 80’s to something that would resonate with audiences in 2024. While the core of the story remains the same, some elements of it feel different to a modern audience than they did in the original play. In the same American Theatre magazine interview, Lucas noted that “When Mary-Louise Parker played Rita in the 1990 Broadway production…people thought Rita was a charming kook because she was so afraid of the world being destroyed. Flash forward to 2024, Rita doesn’t seem crazy at all. She seems correctly alarmed by the state of the world – she is the sanest person in the play!”
The original play’s themes of love and companionship are ultimately timeless, but the way the world has changed around the story has had a profound impact on the adaptation of the work into a musical.
For more information about Prelude to a Kiss a musical, visit www.MilwaukeeRep.com.
Wilson Center Features:
• Located in Brookfield’s beautiful Mitchell Park
• 17 miles from downtown Milwaukee
• Theater capacity: 613 seats
• Free parking
On this page: Hannah Corneau and Chris McCarrell in Prelude to a Kiss a musical
MARK on the
Ask Artistic Director Mark Clements...
Mark on the Move: What do you look for as an Artistic Director while traveling?
As the Artistic Director of one of the largest regional theaters, it’s very important that I stay up to date on what new things are happening in the industry. When I travel, my primary purpose is to see new productions or new revivals of productions. Oftentimes, I consider whether the production might be something that could be produced at Milwaukee Rep in a future season. Other times, I am interested in a particular artist or performer connected with the show, or perhaps the playwright. When I travel, I frequently meet with writers to discuss new play development opportunities and potentially start the process of commissioning a brand-new play to be developed at Milwaukee Rep.
I frequently travel for casting auditions. The main hubs we cast our productions out of are Milwaukee, Chicago, and New York. Productions with highly specific demographics are more frequently cast in New York because there is a broader base of diverse performers who are members of Actors’ Equity Association (AEA), especially of actor-musicians who have been featured in our productions of As You Like It, Much Ado About Nothing, Run Bambi Run, and the upcoming Romeo and Juliet and Million Dollar Quartet. Sometimes actors will also come from areas with theaters we are partnering with on co-productions, such as Seattle or Kansas City.
I also travel to bring more awareness to the great work we’re doing at Milwaukee Rep. On my travels I meet with people who work in all areas of the theater industry, and I share the exciting
changes that are happening with the construction of our new theater spaces and the kind of work that it will allow us to do. This is especially true of the new stage in the Powerhouse Theater that will convert from a thrust to a proscenium configuration and make our space compatible with almost all other theaters in the world. By connecting with other artists from around the country and around the world, I am able to promote Milwaukee Rep as a destination for the nation’s best artists to create the best art.
Of course, New York isn’t the only place I go to see great theater. I frequently see theater in Chicago, sometimes in Madison, and I travel to see each of the co-productions we do at the regional theaters we work with across the country. Back in the spring I traveled to Kansas City, Missouri, Cincinnati, Ohio, and Costa Mesa, California to see our co-productions of Nina Simone: Four Women, The Chosen, and Prelude to a Kiss a musical in our co-producing theaters’ spaces. I firmly believe that some of the best theater is happening outside of Broadway, and I am incredibly grateful for the opportunity to see and be inspired by great theater all across the country that influences the work we do here in Milwaukee.
Mark Clements meets with playwright Lloyd Suh (The Heart Sellers, left), and actors Nate Stampley and Jeffrey Kringer in New York.
Mark Clements (left) with Gordon Gano and Eric Simonson in workshops for Run Bambi Run
SUSTAINING TRUSTEES OF THE YEAR
Each year, Milwaukee Rep recognizes former trustees who continue to contribute to our success even after their tenure on our Board has ended. This year, we would like to recognize Gregory Oberland and David Lubar as our Sustaining Trustees of the Year.
Gregory Oberland served on our Board from 2013-2022, and served as president of the Board from 2018-2021, providing crucial leadership as we navigated the COVID-19 Pandemic. He also served as a member of our Powering Milwaukee campaign cabinet and helped us achieve our fundraising goal to bring the new Associated Bank Theater Center to life. Together with his wife Rhonda, Gregory has given a generous contribution to name the Gregory and Rhonda Oberland Lobby within the Herro-Franke Studio Theater.
David Lubar served on our board from 1985-1992 while John Dillon and Tonen (Sara) O’Connor led the organization as Artistic Director and Managing Director. David’s generous contributions to the Powering Milwaukee campaign helped to name the new Lubar Lounge, and he generously leveraged his gift as a matching gift challenge to help finish the campaign.
TAKE A SEAT
His leadership within Milwaukee Rep and as a philanthropist in the Greater Milwaukee community has been crucial to our ongoing success.
Both recipients of the Sustaining Trustee Award share deep roots with Milwaukee Rep, and continue to drive positive change within the city.
Circle
• $10,000 – Orchestra
• $5,000 – Balcony
• Herro-Franke Studio Theater - $5,000
• Stackner Cabaret - $5,000 Pledges can be paid over a period of up to five years. For more information and to make a gift to name a seat, visit the link below or contact Chuck Rozewicz, Chief Development Officer at crozewicz@milwaukeerep.com www.MilwaukeeRep.com/TakeASeat
Lynsey Gallagher Associate Director of Development, Events & Stewardship lgallagher@milwaukeerep.com Chuck Rozewicz Chief Development Officer crozewicz@milwaukeerep.com
Amy Dorman Director of Development adorman@milwaukeerep.com
Cassidy Skorija Director of Major and Planned Giving cskorija@milwaukeerep.com
Bill Walton Senior Gift Officer bwalton@milwaukeerep.com
Megan Newbanks Associate Director of Development, Institutional Giving mnewbanks@milwaukeerep.com
Amy McGuire Donor Services Manager amcguire@milwaukeerep.com
Maddy Wysocky Development Associate mwysocky@milwaukeerep.com
Gregory Oberland
David Lubar